‘We’ve already begged,’ said Klarm. ‘Our embassy was fired on at the border.’
Yggur, who was looking up at the dais, said, ‘We’re called.’ He turned to the three travellers and put out his hand. ‘Let’s not have this crisis overshadow your truly mammoth deeds. Well done, Tiaan, Nish and Irisis.’
‘Too well done,’ said Irisis. ‘It would have been better if we’d died in the first attempt.’ She fell in beside Nish, who was more silent than usual. They headed up to take their places. The silent crowd were already sitting down.
Tiaan did not follow them. ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ she said to Irisis. ‘I don’t think I can bear to hear what they’re going to say.’
‘We can’t do anything to help the east,’ said General Troist after the situation had been summed up to the silent gathering. ‘Let’s concentrate on what we can do for ourselves.’
‘Not much,’ said Yggur. ‘The enemy’s numbers are far greater than we had estimated, and in the east they’ve used their flesh-formed creatures to devastating effect. They released thousands of uggnatl, and other creatures like it, onto the battlefields. They had a lot more of them than we’d thought.’ Yggur signed to an aide standing to the side, who held up the stuffed body of Flydd’s uggnatl. Irisis could smell it from where she sat, a breath-catching odour of decay. ‘The little beasts are so fast and agile that they’re difficult to hit. They brought down our soldiers by attacking their legs, and once on the ground they had no chance.’
‘We still have no defence against them,’ Troist said heavily. ‘Apart from leather leg armour, yet another burden for our overburdened troops.’
‘Leg armour was tried in the east,’ said the scrutator. ‘The uggnatl simply went for the groin, the one thing most men fear more than death. So would I have, in my day.’
That drew a smile or two around the room, for Flydd was such an ugly, withered old coot that no one could imagine him at the business of procreation. Those who knew what had happened to him at the hands of Ghorr’s torturers did not smile, however.
‘What about mail or plate armour?’ called a uniformed officer from the front row.
‘It’s too heavy,’ said Troist. ‘It slows our soldiers too much against the lyrinx. Thankfully the ones bred in Oellyll succumbed to the fungus, so we won’t be facing them.’
‘My council has long feared it would come to this,’ said Governor Nisbeth, after a quiet word to her councillors. ‘We made a plan for the end last spring. Now we must put it into effect. We won’t send your brave men to certain death, General Troist. Our soldiers have been dying for more than a hundred years, and it has availed us naught. Our beautiful land must be abandoned, since it is undefendable. We will evacuate Borgistry to the last peasant and go east into the Borgis Woods. There are vast cave systems in the Peaks of Borg, as well as along Lake Parnggi and in the southern arm of the Great Mountains, beyond the lake. It’s rugged, inhospitable country, but we know it well. Let the enemy pursue us there if they dare. In the caves, we’ll maintain what’s left of our civilisation for as long as we can endure.’
‘Nobly spoken,’ Flydd declared. ‘Where’s Grand Commander Orgestre?’
‘Packing his bags and slipping out the window,’ someone in the crowd said in a low voice. No one laughed.
Flydd scowled. ‘What of your army, Troist?’
‘We’ll form a rearguard to shield the escape, then make our way east by paths suitable for clankers.’ He paused. ‘What a sorry day this is.’
There was another silence. No one wanted to break it.
A very tall man at the back of the room stood up and threw off his hood, and a mass of woolly hair sprang out in all directions. There was a stir around him. It was Gilhaelith. He began to walk up to the front, and such was his presence that no one said a word. He reached the foot of the dais and stopped.
‘How the devil did you get in here?’ said Yggur, rising to his feet. ‘Guards –’
‘Sit down, Yggur,’ Flydd said wearily. ‘Gilhaelith is the one man who might tell us something we don’t know about our enemy.’
‘He betrayed Fiz Gorgo,’ Yggur said savagely, ‘and I won’t have a bar of him.’
‘You imprisoned me for no other reason than that you disliked me,’ said Gilhaelith, almost serenely. Not a trace of his previous bitterness was evident.
‘I imprisoned you for dealing with the enemy.’
‘And I merely did my best to escape.’
‘Which showed Ghorr the way. Without him –’
‘Enough!’ grated Klarm, and they both fell silent. ‘You came to our Council for a reason, Gilhaelith. What is it? Have you anything to offer humanity in its final hours, or are you here as an emissary for your lyrinx masters?’
‘I barely escaped from Alcifer with my life,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They planned to eat me once they’d finished with me.’
‘How did you escape?’ said Flydd, with an edge to his voice.
‘Your attack with the spores threw them into confusion. I acted with dispatch and was lucky enough to spot an air-floater, which brought me here.’
‘Hmn,’ Flydd said, as if sifting his words for any grains of truth. ‘What do you have to offer us in this emergency?’
‘Information.’
‘In exchange for what?’
‘A place on the Council.’
‘Not in my lifetime,’ said Yggur.
‘You declined to be on it,’ Flydd snapped. ‘You have no say.’ He looked up at Gilhaelith. ‘First you’ll have to convince us to trust you and, considering your history …’
‘Very well,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’ll give you this freely, as a token of my good faith. The relics the lyrinx took from the tar pits of Snizort are most precious to them.’
‘We already knew that, but go on,’ said Flydd.
‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol to locate the relics. Indeed, the only reason they built their city underground at Snizort, decades ago, was to find them, and they prolonged the battle for Snizort for a day, at the cost of thousands of lyrinx lives, just so they could get them safely to Alcifer.’
‘Why do they value these relics? What can they possibly mean to the lyrinx?’
‘I don’t know, but the matriarch personally took charge of them when Alcifer was being evacuated. If you can seize the relics, the enemy would bargain with you to get them back.’
‘Where are they now?’ said Flydd.
‘She was trapped with them when part of the underground city collapsed.’
‘And yet the other lyrinx left Oellyll?’ Flydd said doubtfully.
‘The infection was spreading and they dared not stay. But the relics are safe and Gyrull is still alive. It will just take some digging to get them out.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’
‘Yes,’ said Gilhaelith without elaboration.
‘It’s valuable information,’ said Flydd, ‘though I’m not about to risk an army digging under Alcifer. As soon as the lyrinx discovered we were there, they’d wipe us out. Do you have any information that can help us stave off the enemy? Considering your record, Gilhaelith, nothing else will do.’
Gilhaelith opened his mouth, but closed it again as if he’d thought better of it.
‘Come on, man!’ said Flydd. ‘I know you assisted them to develop a more powerful device than their node-drainers.’
After a long, reluctant hesitation, Gilhaelith said in a low voice, ‘I was forced to it, and this is for the ears of your Council only. They’ve grown a new device which they call a flisnadr, a power patterner. A device for controlling the flow of power from a field, rather than just shutting it off.’
‘Have they now?’ said Flydd. ‘I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. We must talk more about this privately, Gilhaelith.’ He put out his hand. ‘Welcome aboard.’
The evacuation of Borgistry began at once, the people melting into the uncanny Borgis Woods. General Orgestre’s army, the smaller, had gone with them, while Troist’s force remained behind to guard the rear, in case the enemy came on more swiftly than expected. The Council and the governor were relocating to Hysse, a fertile valley surrounded by almost unclimbable ridges, between Parnggi and the Ramparts of Tacnah. Irisis was to go with them, along with Tiaan. Nish was to remain as Troist’s adjutant for the time being, though he regretted it now. There was no saying he’d ever see any of his friends again.